Violet 2/3-2/10

I'm Mason, and I'm working on Violet, a musical by Jeanine Tesori (composer, Thoroughly Modern Millie and Shrek the Musical) Brian Crawley (librettist), and based off Doris Betts' short story "The Ugliest Pilgrim". Violet is the 1960's story of Violet Karl travelling via Greyhound from her home of Spruce Pine, North Carolina to Tulsa, Oklahoma to a televangelist to heal her scarred face. On the way she meets with various people on and off the bus including two soldiers named Flick (a black sergeant) and Monty (a white paratrooper), both of whom she loves and whom love her in very different way. This production is at North Hennepin Community College with theatre director Mike Ricci, and I'll be playing Monty.

Rehearsal actually started on the 2nd with a meet-and-greet along with a listen to the soundtrack, but I couldn't get there due to the weather. So my first day of rehearsal was the beginning of music, which we will solely look at for the first 3 weeks of rehearsal, and with the cast being 9 total I was placed into several of the ensemble pieces.

I'm not from a choir or band background, and I've only done a few musicals as the one role who doesn't sing (i.e. Lewis in Pippin), but I've done enough musicals to know Tesori composed incredibly complex music; 4-6 part harmonies throughout on individual lines spanning over 2 octaves, 2-4 key and time signature changes in nearly every song, all with Carolina accents for 2 hours. On top of this, most of the rehearsal time is sight-reading right now, another area I'm woefully undeveloped in.

My goal is to not lose my voice